Sam holds a football Funday

9 year old Sam was born with a cleft lip and palate and so far he has had 10 operations to repair this birth defect. He is due to have another operation later this year, the most intensive one yet, where they will take a piece of bone from his hip and use this to fill the gap in his gum. This will be followed by a lot of dentist work to straighten and even add teeth to make it easier for him to eat, speak and to make his teeth look even better. Sam has been an incredibly brave boy through all his operations to date, but had been refusing to have this latest one.

Sam's mum Rachel came up with the idea to show him pictures of other children who have not had the benefits of the NHS. She showed him photos of children on our website and together they read the stories of some of our patients from around the world. Then something wonderful happened, Sam was so moved by what the charity does for children less fortunate, that he said he wanted to help.

Sam wanted to raise a very ambitions £2,000 which would sponsor an operating table for a complete Operation Smile mission somewhere in the world giving new smiles to around 25 children. To help raise the money, Sam and his mum organised a football fun day.

Despite the less than perfect weather everyone turned out for the football fun day. The main event was the football competitions for P4/5 & P6/7 pupils which we are delighted to say was won by Sam's Team "Miles for Smiles"! The burgers went down and storm and everyone took part in the entertainment including the silent auction, bottle stall and beat the goalie.

By the end of the day Sam had raised an astonishing £4,213.23 which is outstanding for someone so young and we are more than delighted to report that he has also come around to the need for his own operation!